


Riptide

by sigo



Series: Riptide [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Being An Asshole, Armitage Hux Lives, Ben Solo Lives, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Lives, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Protective Kylo Ren, Seduction to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26358415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigo/pseuds/sigo
Summary: The tent was dark, and when Kylo’s eyes adjusted he saw that there were no wares on the table. Dried herbs hung from the structure’s rafters, infusing the place with an herbal scent. Savorium, barenth. Plants for Jedi rituals. Or Sith. He’d been foolish not to feel it before; the Dark Side was strong in this place, crackling along his spine like lightning and raising the hair on his arms.He would not betray Rey’s trust so openly, and under her watch in the market, where she’d be held responsible for his mistakes. He had at least enough strength to spare her that. Kylo turned to leave, and a voice stopped him. It was a voice he’d have known anywhere, and it would likely always be just as fresh in his mind no matter how many years he spanned without hearing it.“Careful, Ren. Is that what you really want?”
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Riptide [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090445
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	Riptide

**Author's Note:**

> Rated/warnings for appearance of a corpse in a Dark Side vision and Hux being suggestive.

Kylo only saw the vendor’s sign because he had to puke. He’d been doing a lot of that. Rey had too, though she seemed to be recovering faster. Maybe it was just part of coming back from the dead, part of walking around with only half the life force a body should contain, though that was far from the only thing they had in common. He’d tried to let her have all of his -- he hardly wanted it anymore -- and she hadn’t let him get by with it. So: the puking. Sometimes he got more warning than others. A metallic taste in the back of his throat, or an excess of drool. Sometimes it just came up without warning. It made venturing very far from public refreshers dangerous, but the siren song of getting out from under the watchful eyes of the newly minted Third Republic was too sweet to resist. As long as Rey was with him, the others allowed it. Rey was more lenient. _Trusting_ , Kylo amended. A spike of guilt hit him even as he hunched over, shuddering and wiping strings of acid bile from his lips.

A quick shove with his mind and the liquefied version of Kylo’s dinner sank into the sandy jungle earth and was buried. What an elegant use for the living Force. Kylo laughed to himself, and then spat twice more to try and get the taste out of his mouth. If this went on much longer at the same pace, no amount of training would preserve his strength. He wondered not for the first time if his body was failing him for good. He knew Rey wondered the same thing, sometimes. Whether or not Kylo’s -- though of course he was Ben in her mind -- continued sickness could be explained by something as simple as their difference in size, whether she’d kept too much of his life for herself.

When Kylo sat up, kneeling in the dirt of the barren market corner he’d rushed into to vomit, the angle brought him eye-to-eye with a low-hanging tent sign. COME AND SEE. The tent was closed on the sides, purple roughspun cloth fluttering weakly in the breeze. Unusual in the heat of the market. No one could see the wares without entering. It looked dark inside, maybe closed for business. Kylo looked back over his shoulder for Rey, and located her across the thoroughfare. Neither she nor Finn had noticed his absence yet, too focused on each other. _My Jedi guardians_ , Kylo thought sharply, and then backtracked. He was being unfair. Rey trusted him. Finn, less so, but Finn trusted Rey. And ‘Ben’ hadn’t stuck so much as his little finger out of line in two years. The time was short, but after two years of peace much of the galaxy had cast off the shadow of war. So things go, Kylo surmised. The galaxy turned like a wheel halfway submerged in a rolling river, war hidden beneath the sparkling surface of the tide for now.

Kylo stood, dusting off the knees of his faded gray pants, and entered the tent. The moment he passed through the entrance, all sounds from the market outside ceased. He slapped his hand to his belt instinctively, about to draw his saber, and found himself unarmed, the only remaining handicap the Republic required in exchange for limited freedom. He was allowed a blaster when he accompanied Rey on official Republic business (a perverse sort of community service requirement, Ben Solo atoning for the crimes of Kylo Ren) but otherwise?

Declawed.

The tent was just as dark as it had looked, and when Kylo’s eyes adjusted he saw that there were no wares on the table. Dried herbs hung from the structure’s rafters, infusing the place with an herbal scent. Savorium, barenth. Plants for Jedi rituals. Or Sith. The space seemed to go on further behind the table than the limits of the tent he’d seen from the outside would allow, and at the very back there was a faint hazy red glow streaming out from around a corner. He’d been foolish not to feel it before; the Dark Side was strong in this place, crackling along his spine like lightning and raising the hair on his arms.

Kylo had made strides over the years, meditating with Rey. She was more confident in his progress than he was, continually assuring him she felt the Light in him. But even if he was meant to be Ben Solo now, and truthfully he couldn’t even think of himself as that in his own head, the Light had never come naturally to Ben either. He’d had little chance against the cold fingers of the Dark as a youngling, when they tapped up the back of his neck, teasing. He was attuned to it. He felt a bit like a recovering Spice addict now. The majority of the old Resistance certainly treated him like one.

Still, he would not betray Rey’s trust so openly, and under her watch in the market, where she’d be held responsible for his mistakes. He had at least enough strength to spare her that. Kylo turned to leave, and a voice stopped him. It was a voice he’d have known anywhere, and it would likely always be just as fresh in his mind no matter how many years he spanned without hearing it.

“Careful, Ren. Is that what you really want?”

“This is a trick,” Kylo told it.

“Come and see.”

Kylo vaulted over the table and walked into the gloom. He turned a corner and came upon another room, still walled up with purple cloth and lit by a swinging red lamp that cast strange shadows. The only sound was the metal squeak of the lamp’s chain, though he knew he was at the edge of a bustling Ajan Kloss market. There might as well have been a night desert outside. There was even a chill in the room. There wasn’t a living man inside this room of the tent. There was a corpse slumped in a chair. Kylo reeled back, looking at sweat-soaked and lifeless red hair pulled down over a pale face, hideous burns reaching up and down from the electric collar around its neck.

“No,” he said, arguing with this vision. “You lie. The Resistance doesn’t execute prisoners.”

Kylo knew that the real General Hux was not sitting dead in a market tent halfway across the planet from the old Resistance base, he was locked up there. In his cell until the Republic decided to transport him to Coruscant for his hearing, probably furious, but _safe_. Thinking that word in relation to Hux shouldn’t make Kylo feel better. There was no voice now. There was no need for one; the scene in front of him taunted, _The Resistance doesn’t? The Republic will_. Kylo had opened himself to the Dark to see what he would see, letting it flood his veins with ice, and this was the inevitable result. It knew there were no words more convincing than what it was showing him.

The chair Hux sat in was not so different from the one he pulled up to the glass when Kylo came to visit, another thing Kylo should have long ago abandoned. He continued his visits on the pretense of obtaining information, and Rey backed him on it. Last night he had sat across from Hux, the Republic’s most valuable prisoner stripped of his uniform and dressed in shapeless white clothes, unshaven and ungroomed and much meaner for it, and Kylo had let Hux rile him up to the point of shouting. What he’d said Kylo couldn’t remember, but what Hux said was etched in his brain.

“You want to fuck me so bad it makes you _stupid_ , Ren.”

That was the truth of it, finally dragged out between them in the sterile glow of a Third Republic holding cell. Hearing those words pass Hux’s lips made Kylo even angrier. Of course he’d already known that Hux was attracted to him. More, that Hux had a _very_ grudging respect for him, and he knew that Hux was not ignorant of the yearning looks Kylo gave him in return. Kylo could run a gentle touch along the outside of Hux’s mind whenever he wanted, picking up the surface thoughts, and hear exactly what the good General thought his mouth was better used for than shouting at Hux’s crew. But for seven years neither of them had broached the subject, either in words or actions. Too busy losing a war. It was cruel to bring it into the open now, when there was nothing to be done about it. Hux was nothing if not cruel.

The Dark Side was nothing if not opportunistic. “Fear of loss,” Kylo muttered to himself, looking into the white marble eyes of the corpse that Hux might come to be. He turned and walked back out, careful not to rush. It wouldn’t be prudent to show the Dark any more weakness than it had already pulled out of him in stringy red handfuls.

Kylo broke out back into the heat of the jungle sun, and noise flooded his ears with the startling suddenness of rising from beneath water. He found that he was breathing hard. If he hadn’t already vomited he might do it now.

“Ben?” Rey’s voice, concerned.

“I’m fine,” Kylo said automatically.

“I couldn’t hear you for a second, I--” Rey’s face was guileless. She’d called him a monster once, but she held no suspicion for him now. Finn behind her wore a more cautious expression.

“I’m fine, really. Had to puke.” Kylo told her. It rang true. Lying by omission already. Two years clean before a relapse, and not even considerate enough to warn his keepers. The clamor of the market was maddening now, people hawking wares and talking with friends, heedless of his struggle. He felt the sun on his face, hot enough to make him sweat, and yet his insides still felt submerged in cold. He’d thought he was close to the shore, but he hadn’t left the riptide. It was dragging him back out now to drown, and he couldn't even scream for help without being blamed. He'd gone for a dive where one shouldn't.

“We should go back,” Finn said, though they’d planned to stay at least an hour more. Kylo nodded numbly. Before he followed Rey and Finn back to the Falcon, Kylo looked behind him, already knowing what he’d see. The tent was gone, the earth where it had stood undisturbed and teeming with ferns.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a comment from Davrosfan3 ab Kylo returning to the Dark Side after TROS and sort of being seduced back by Hux -- I have more written for this (because everything I write turns out longer than it should, that is my curse) but its not finished by any means and idk if I'm going to post the rest so this is marked complete for now as sort of a vignette. Hux's line is from a tweet and I don't remember who tweeted it.
> 
> I swear I am working on all my WIPs, some are just faster than others and I am easily distracted by shiny new things.


End file.
